It's Okay to Grieve
by Lailuh
Summary: It's the anniversary of Ben's death but Peter's nowhere to be found.


It had been nine hours; nine hours since Peter up and vanished from the face of the earth.

When everyone awoke in the compound that morning they were all a bit surprised to see the youngest wasn't lazily making himself breakfast. He did have a late night of patrolling so they all just assumed he needed extra rest. Not that they had anything that explicitly needed to be done by him but it normally meant that he was injured to some greater capacity than normal and was trying to hide it. FRIDAY had reported that he had gotten in around four and when she asked Karen about any possible injury, the AI reported that the night had been very calm and lax and there was no urgent reason Peter was sleeping in other than he might have been sleep deprived and he needed rest. No one thought anything of it until FRIDAY reported that he wasn't actually in his room and had left through his window two hours before everyone woke up.

Sure enough when they checked his room, he wasn't there. None of his things were disturbed and no alarms were tripped so that rules out any fowl play. The thing that set everyone off was his phone, watch- which Tony put a tracker in- and suit were all left behind. That was the one thing _everyone_ agreed to always have on them; some way to tell where they are, no exceptions- not even Black Widow.

Tony immediately took the spider suit and looked through the Baby Monitor footage and audio logs of the previous night. There was barely anything on it; Peter helped a few people but other than that the night was really quiet. He only ever asked Karen to look for any trouble once. Tony watched every minute of the footage and there was nothing that caught his eye, nothing that indicated anything was physically wrong, absolutely _nothing_ that said he was in danger or being pursued by someone where he would need to do away with the trackers.

There was something, or there lack of, in the audio logs though. Peter was unnaturally quiet the whole night. The only thing that was consistent the entire night was the sounds of cars in the distance and Peter's breathing. Karen had tried to confront him and get him to speak his mind but every reply was either _I'm fine_ or _It's nothing._

He had taken the GPS data from the tracker in his watch and mapped out where he had gone but nothing was out of the ordinary. He searched the news to see if something significant might have happened on any of the streets but there was nothing. Nonetheless, Steve and Bucky were sent a copy of the route and went to check for themselves.

It was going on five in the evening and there was still no sign of the boy. It wasn't until FRIDAY had pulled up maps of his route from previous nights and compared them. The area he had patrolled was much smaller than any other night and it appeared as he was going out of his way not to go down a certain street. After some sleuthing he discovered the street and any significant events that might have happened on it. His heart sank when he read a newspaper article.

 _MAN SHOT AND KILLED BY ARMED ROBBER._

 _Benjamin Parker was shot and killed last night after an armed assailant robbed a nearby liquor store and was attempting to flee the scene. Witnesses say Parker had startled the man after bumping into him which brought the assailant to draw his weapon and fire, delivering a fatal blow. To make matters worse, the young boy that was seen cradling the dying man was revealed to be Parker's nephew. Parker left behind a wife and nephew. Our hearts and prayers go out to the grieving family._

The date was two years ago to the day.

 **AVENGERS**

Peter had been sitting there for hours and he was pretty sure he fell asleep at one point. It had been two years since Ben had been killed, since he had let Ben get killed and he still felt as guilty as ever.

He had gotten to the small cemetery at around seven in the morning and sat by Ben's grave all day. He had told him stories about what had happened in his life, mainly becoming Spider-Man. He told Ben about the time he was really sick and that it was actually the mutation spreading through his body and not a really bad case of the flu like they thought. He told him how Tony Stark had been sitting on the couch with May one day when he got home from school and how his _internship_ was a cover for having Tony train him and work on his suit band web shooters. He even told him about his fight with the Vulture and how that spiraled into being coaxed into being an Avenger even though he denied admission the first time.

After a few hours of telling him all the stories he could think of, he fell silent before beginning to apologize. He apologized over and over, saying it was his fault for not stopping the robber and how it was his fault Ben got shot. He sat there and begged to be forgiven.

He sat there all day, just a little after sunrise and just before sunset before he heard footsteps and a voice approach him.

"Hey kid."

"Hey Mr. Stark." Peter wipes his eyes but didn't look at the man in front of him. "I- uh, sorry. Guess I was longer than I expected."

"You have nothing to apologize for kid." Tony's voice was so gentle it hurt. He walked up to Ben's grave and set a bouquet of flowers on it. "I bet he'd be proud of you."

"How can he be proud of me when I'm the one that killed him?" Peter's voice was shaky and barely above a whisper.

Tony wanted to punch him, do anything to get him out of that mind set. "You had nothing to do with his death Pete."

"I did. If I had just- if I only had- he was in the store I was in and I just watched him steal the things. If I had actually stopped and helped-" His words became mumbled sobs.

"Peter." Tony knelt down in front of him. "You were _fourteen._ No one in their right mind would have expected you to do _anything_ in that situation. I want you to look at me." He waited patiently for a minute before Peter raised his head and looked at him with a tear stricken face. " _You did not kill him. You were a scared bystander who could have done_ nothing. _It was_ not _your fault._

"Do you want to know why your uncle would be proud of you? Your grades for one; straight A's in everything except PE but everyone knows that doesn't count. Your internship because let's be honest, you do _a lot_ for me and Pepper when we're not working on our suits or Avenger business. Our cover story has become a reality. But I believe he would be most proud of _you._ You are one of the most selfless, generous, and caring individuals I've ever met. You-" he paused, looking for the right words to say. "You used your misfortune and turned it into something that could better the future.

"I know I'm probably stepping over some sort of weird personal boundary right now but you always put others before yourself and that's not an easy trait to find in people anymore. You used your uncle's death as a stepping stone to turn into something great, and I think he's be pretty damn proud of you for trying to make this hellhole of a world a better place for people who can't."

Tony's voice dropped to a near whisper and he put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "I think he would be proud of you, because you didn't wallow in your depression and squander your powers. You chose to _save_ people- to make sure no one lost anyone like you did and had to experience what you had."

Peter wiped his face. "Do you really think that?"

"I do kiddo. He's not the only one either; I know for a fact that everyone at the compound is proud of you for what you do. Aunt Hottie's probably bragged about you to her friends and I know I don't ever say it but I'm hella proud of you." He paused for a moment. "It's perfectly natural to grieve for a loved one, but taking in all the blame, it's not right. You're making yourself suffer and no one likes seeing you like that. Especially when you cut communications with people that could help.

"I'm- really out of my element in trying to do this but I hope I'm getting my message across. My point is, you have people you can talk to about things like this and I'm sure there's plenty of shoulders for you to cry on if you need to. You don't have to go through this alone is what I'm trying to say."

Peter stared at the man in front of him, his words sinking in. "Thank you Mr. Stark."

"Anytime kiddo." He flashed a small smile. "How about we go get you something to eat? I'm certain your stomach is probably imploding right now."

That earned a smiled. "I think I could eat a bit of something."

Tony help him to his feet and threw an arm around his shoulder. "I hope you can eat a lot. Tweety said something about going all out for an Italian or something."

Peter gave a final glance to his uncle's grave before the two of them began to walk away. Tony's words echoed in his head. "Yeah, sounds good."

 ** _Sobbing in the distance_**

 **This is by far the shortest thing I've ever written but I'm happy with how it turned out. I've never seen any stories pertaining to Uncle Ben and Peter having to cope with it so I hope I did this one justice.  
**

 **Also I've been working on a different story and I'm just about half way through it but I have no idea where to go with it so it might be a while before another story comes out BUT anything can happen.**

 **Hope ya liked it. See ya in the next one!**


End file.
